Echoes
by xJanzx
Summary: This is a one parter dealing with the immediate aftermath of Archie's return to Walford.


**Echoes**

Ronnie stood in the middle of the Vic, dozens of pairs of eyes on her every move. But she couldn't move, she couldn't do anything, all she could do was stare at the scene that had greeted her upon her entrance to the pub run by her cousin and her aunt. And now . . . him.

Him. The man that had ripped her heart to shreds a million and one times. The man that had lied to her over and over again until she had fallen for his deceit. The man that she had once called her father.

"Ron, Ron-" Roxy began to say, pressing her hands down on the bar top as she viewed her sister from behind the bar.

"What have you done, Roxy?" Jack breathed, his words steeped in a venomous hatred that would slaughter even the deadliest of enemies. His body moved closer to the woman he loved, the woman he had been apart from for the last month, needing to protect her from the reality of the situation. _Please darling, just walk away. Walk away and pretend this never happened. Or let me take you away. That's all I wanna do. Just let me take you away from this. Let me take you away._

"Veronica," Archie spoke, his eyes trying to read the hidden emotion in his daughter's face, the emotions buried beneath the look of betrayal that marred her delicate features.

"Ronnie," Peggy stepped forwards, towards her niece, her arms outstretched, as though about to take hold of Ronnie's. But she took a step backwards, distancing herself from the family that claimed to love her so much.

"What is he doing here?" Ronnie asked the full pub, her eyes were fixed on the jukebox, no longer staring at the man that she wished would replace her daughter's body in a Telford cemetery. Ronnie could feel her stomach turning over and bile rising in her throat, but she pushed it down. He wouldn't get to her, she wouldn't let him.

"Ronnie, please, try and understand. He's our dad," Roxy pleaded with her older sister, trying to make her understand with heartfelt words about the unbreakable bond of love between a parent and a child. A bond Ronnie knew only too well.

She shook her head, her face void of remorse or even anger. "He's not my dad."

"Saying that don't make it true, Ronnie," Roxy stated, her ice blue eyes boring a hole through her sister's defences.

"I wish he was dead-"

"Don't you _dare_ say that!" Roxy shouted, her hands slamming down on the mahogany bar top. Glass tumblers toppled over and an empty pint bottle clattered loudly to the floor. Ronnie watched them, as though mesmerized by the spinning, as though caught in an infinite moment between an action and it's consequences; the glass would fall and shatter, but right now, it was just spinning; it hadn't met it's death. At least not yet.

She blinked and drew her eyes to her sister's. Ronnie spoke once again, her voice harder this time, stronger. "I want him dead."

"You heartless bitch!" Roxy exclaimed through her gritted teeth, her hands curling into fists, ready to pummel her older sister's body.

"_You're_ saying that to Ron?!" Jack shouted, incredulous. "_You're_ the one that's brought **him** back 'ere! How could you do that to her? She's your _sister_!"

"And he's my **dad**!" Roxy screamed back, flinging an arm in the direction of her father, who walked towards her and placed a comforting hand on her outstretched arm.

"It's okay, sweetheart," he told her, gentle squeezing Roxy's arm. Archie turned to his eldest daughter, his blue eyes locking on hers, on the ones that haunted him every time he closed his eyes. "Well, you've got your wish, Veronica."

_My wish? My __**wish**__?! Does he mean the one where I can hold my daughter in my arms and not have the breath leave her? When I can wake up and go to her room and just watch her sleeping peacefully? Where I can make her breakfast in the morning and know that she'll be there to eat it and not rotting in the ground somewhere, dead? What the hell would he know about my wish?_

Ronnie scoffed, shaking her head.

"The cancer's back, all they can do is manage the pain. I've got four months to live, V."

The words washed over her, like a soothing wave, the warm water lapping at her broken heart. She could feel everyone's eyes moving between her and him, their raised eyebrows and somewhat shocked pity almost deafening. He had cancer. He was dying. Her father was dying. Her forehead creased, almost a frown formed on her face. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see his interest piqued, a hopeful glint in his menacing eyes. But within a fraction of a second, the almost frown disappeared, replaced once again with an expression void of any type of emotion. Ronnie's lips parted, her tongue moved and one word echoed throughout the pub.

"Good."

"You bitch!" Roxy shouted, her mouth set in a tight scowl as the tears poured down her face.

"Ronnie!"

"Four months?" Ronnie asked, ignoring her sister's and her aunt's outbursts. Archie silently nodded, his eyes scrutinizing every detail of her, obviously trying to discover what that news meant to her, what emotions it stirred. "Four more than Danielle."

She could feel people look away at that moment, suddenly remembering her dead daughter. She could feel their guilt, it was so heavy in the air, almost suffocating and whatever they had felt about Ronnie's earlier reaction to the news of her father's impending death, that was replaced by something entirely different. Understanding.

"Ronnie, sweetheart, I know-"

"No, you don't," Ronnie said, sharply, silencing her aunt with those three words. "If you did, you would never have welcomed him back into your life. So tell me, come on, what did he do? How did he worm his way back in? Did he talk about his secret pain? Did he cry?" Her mirthless laugh rang out through the room, bouncing off the walls and through everyone until they had felt as though shards of glass that pierced their skin. "Or did he talk about making amends, fixing things before he met his maker?"

"Yeah," Peggy replied softly, wishing that there was a way that loving her husband wouldn't hurt the niece that had become a daughter to her.

"Well, more fool you, then."

"Ronnie, didn't you hear? Our dad is dying and he wants to make it right," Roxy told her, looking at her older sister imploringly. _All he wants is for her to love him again – is that really too much to ask? To grant a dying man's last wish? Is it?_

"I heard perfectly, Roxanne!" Ronnie retorted, the white hot anger rushing forth with every syllable she spoke.

"Well obviously you _didn't_ if you're still being like this! Dad's dying, Ron. He's dying." Roxy repeated the words, hammering home the inevitability of their father's death. _How can she be so cold? He's still our dad, he still loves the both of us._

Ronnie shrugged her shoulders. "So? What do you want me to do, Rox? Start crying? Collapse on the floor and ask why this is happening? I already did that – or don't you remember the day my daughter died?" She spun around, her accusatory eyes seeking out each and every one of the faces that were witnessing the family exchange. "Do _none_ of you?! He lied to me for **months** about my daughter being _dead_! He made everyone think she was a liar and then let me throw her out of here. You all saw that, you all saw what he did and nobody says a word. Three months – that's all it's been, three months since my little girl was killed – how can you already forget her?"

She rounded on Charlie and Mo, who were sitting the corner booth, their drinks stood forgotten on the low table. "You lived with her for months, worked with her on the stall. Every day for six months – how could you have forgotten her?"

Jack's fingers brushed against the tips of hers as he went to hold her hand, but at the last second, he thought differently and let his hand drop back down to his side. All he wanted was to take her pain away, but holding her hand wouldn't do that, killing Archie wouldn't do that either. So what was he meant to do? "We haven't, Ron. We haven't," he whispered, his warm breath dancing across the back of her neck, letting her know that he would forever be behind her, ready to catch her each and every time she would let herself fall.

"We haven't forgotten love, and we never will. Danielle was a special girl and was taken from us too soon. We'll never forget your daughter, Ronnie," Charlie told her. The sincerity and tenderness of his voice was comforting to her; she knew her daughter had been loved. But that comfort didn't help her in the next moment.

"Tell her, dad," Roxy said, looking pointedly between her father and Ronnie. "Tell her what you told me. Tell her what it's been like for you, why you came back."

Archie inwardly sighed; it was as though his heart was admitting defeat, but his sheer willpower was too stubborn to do the same.

"Well, go on then – tell me all about what it's been like for _you_!" Ronnie demanded, her voice even and cold; her words sharper than a samurai that had been slashed across his skin; the wounds open and gaping and weeping blood tears.

"I miss you, V." Ronnie instantly scoffed, looking away from him because if she didn't, she'd no doubt throw a glass at her father's face. "You can scoff all you want, but I'm still your dad and going back to that empty house; everywhere there were just reminders of you, reminders and echoes of you and what I had done to you, sweetheart."

"Don't call me that!"

"Small things at first," Archie continued, as though he hadn't heard Ronnie's defiance to accept any type of love or affection from him. "Boxes in the attic, that sort of thing. So many regrets and so many reminders; toys you used to play with, the doll house you both loved and . . . something else." He stopped, his eyes trained on his eldest daughter, watching her face for a change in expression.

"Show her, dad," Roxy urged, needing them both to reconcile their differences. "Show her what you found."

But Archie shook his head. "There's no point, Roxy. . . to any of it."

"No! Just show her." Roxy stooped low behind the bar, everyone's eyes on her as she retrieved a pale bronze blanket. She walked around the bar, to where her sister stood and pressed the baby blanket into Ronnie's hands. "He found the blanket you bought, for your . . . baby."

Ronnie's eyes dropped from her sister's face to the blanket that she now held in her hands, the blanket that had swaddled her little girl for a mere hour and a half before they were both taken from her. Ronnie felt as though she was free falling, the ground had shifted beneath her feet and she was falling into the depths of a raging inferno, one that threatened to engulf her in it's burning embrace. And she was willing to let herself be consumed by it, to fall into the hatred that ripped her soul apart and allow herself to surrender to the darkness. Because that could stop the pain.

"You evil bastard," she stated, her words precise and clear and so full of hatred.

"Ronnie?" Roxy asked, taken aback by her sister's response.

"How can you dangle my child in front of me when you were the one that took her away? That _kept_ her away? You say you hear echoes of your child's past, do you know what I hear? The echo of the sound of my daughter's body being hit by that car, of her tiny little body being thrown across that road. I hear her voice all the time, in the club, out in the market; I can hear her so clearly. And her laugh, it rings in my ears every time there's silence. And every time I close my eyes, I see her face; her beautiful face. She is everywhere I go, everywhere except _here_! With _me_! And that's down to you. You did that! You took her away from me over and over again, not because of love but because you wanted to teach me a lesson – isn't that what you said in Weymouth? ISN'T IT?!"

"Ronnie, I didn't mean-"

"I don't care what you meant, just like I don't care that you're dying. In fact, I hope the cancer eats away at your body, causing you so much pain that it hurts to breathe. I wish that you'll _beg_ for death, but that it won't come because you deserve to feel a pain that destroys you, that rips your soul from you with every beat of your heart. Maybe then, maybe then you'll feel a fraction of the pain you caused."

"Ron, he's our dad, you can't-"

"No, he's your dad – I'm not his daughter and I'm not your sister."

"Ronnie, please," Roxy begged her, grabbing hold of her hand and clutching it tightly. But Ronnie pulled away, her skin feeling contaminated by Roxy's touch.

"Was this what you wanted?" She asked, looking her directly in the eye. "Not quite the happy family reunion, is it? Well, I suggest you treasure these moments because it'll be the last you see me. All three of you."

"No, Ron, don't, don't do this," Roxy pleaded with her, rushing forwards to try and stop her older sister walking away from her, but Ronnie refused to be stopped. She walked towards Jack, lifting her hand to his face and gently caressing his cheek with the back of her fingers. Their eyes locked for a moment before Ronnie dragged them away.

"Veronica, I'm sorry."

"Ronnie, darling, don't go."

"Ronnie, please, don't leave! What about Amy, she's your niece – how can you just leave her?"

Ronnie stood still, her goal in reaching the exit suddenly paused. Her hand hovered above the flat gold door handles, the metal cool to the touch. It was as though that question had paralysed her, but somehow she was able to turn around and face her family for the last time. "What about Danielle? She's your niece – how can you forgive the man that caused her death?"

She no longer heard their pleadings, they all fell on deaf ears as she pushed open the double doors of the Vic and walked out. She stopped at the edge of the pavement, bringing the blanket she held in her hands up to her face. Ronnie closed her eyes, inhaling the scent of her baby daughter, a scent that was no longer physical, but simply emotional.

She felt a strong arm snake around her waist and a gentle hand lovingly run across the back of her neck. "It's okay, Ron," Jack murmured, holding her body close to his. "Let's go."

**THE END**


End file.
